The importance of metric view for photodocumentation of facial reconstructive surgery: a single blinded survey.

Photodocumentation is an essential part of dermatooncology and reconstructive surgery. The purpose of this study is to suggest an imaging technique named metric view (photograph of the lesion with a surgical ruler) and to assess the accuracy of different views. Frontal, close-up and metric views were taken from the lesions of ten different cases. All the photographs were showed to 30 medical professionals and a prediction about the size of the lesion was requested individually. The relationship between the prediction values for three views and the exact size of the lesions were statistically analysed. The precise prediction of the exact size was only achieved in metric view of one case. In addition, the most approximate prediction values were obtained in metric views. The statistical analysis demonstrated that there was no statistically significant difference between the prediction values for metric view and exact size of the lesions in half of the cases. In contrast, statistically significant differences were detected in almost all of the prediction values for frontal and close-up views. Frontal and close-up views are not adequate to represent the size of the lesions. Metric view may enable a rational solution for a better representation.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes